Announced this week, T-Mobile is offering a free line of service when you add a line to an existing T-Mobile ONE family plan. That means, you can go into a T-Mobile store and add one line to your existing plan, then get another line for free. In...

one of the great thing about Republic was get the price of a family plan price on a 1 or 2 line account without having to tie others to the account
I rather not see my price go up so a group of others to end up a small discount

carriers that use family plans are not losing money on the rate the cheapest line cost but make money on what they don’t discount

Our Community is about conversations. It’s not meant to be a place where we just link to things that are already on the internet.

Please edit your first post to tell us more about why you think RW needs a family plan. What problem would it solve? What shortfall in our current plan would it fix? How would it make your life better?

Or, please edit your title to match what your post is actually about, and then tell us why you thought it the information was relevant to RW.

Although I don’t see the details of this “third line free” offer on T-mobile’s site yet, I notice that the link in the article is to their promotions page and that it states it will “kick off” on 2/10. So this is likely a temporary promotion. It would not make sense for us to build our plan structure around every temporary promotion another carrier launches.

You don’t need to delete the thread. I’m sure there’s a good conversation here to be had. You saw an article somewhere, and had thoughts about how it was relevant to RW and thought people here would want to know about it. I’m just trying to coax some of those thoughts out of you.

I would love to see a family plan where data could be pooled. When we had multiple lines, we each paid for a 1gb of data (the minimum plan with data) for a total of 3gb but if you looked at our total monthly usage it usually averaged to less than 2gb

Thanks for chiming in with an interesting perspective. So often when we see people wanting a family plan, it’s because they want access to a lot of data, but your family would benefit because it would allow them to use even less!

Maybe we should be like Progressive Insurance & have a name your own price tool! Then give swag freebies to everyone who joins RW. How about pay your early termination fees for you. Possibly free phones to all who sign up. We could have free data weekends like dating sites that don’t charge for the weekend.

I personally think RW has it Right with Fair, Flexible, Economical, Savings minded, Data conscious plans. I don’t want RW to change. Changing will probably equal higher fees & I like what little I am paying.

There is nothing stopping anyone from jumping to family plan providers. Sorry to say if you disagree I am sorry for your plan dilemas. I am happy to support RW’s plans as I have 3 phones (2 - 3.0 phones and 1 - 1.0 phone). I feel that RW has met and exceeded my price expectations.
Enjoy

I would love to see a family plan where data could be pooled. When we had multiple lines, we each paid for a 1gb of data (the minimum plan with data) for a total of 3gb but if you looked at our total monthly usage it usually averaged to less than 2gb

This was what I was thinking… spread the data out over phones…
family plan, $15 per line but bucket of data…

some are here for the tech., others for the low cost, and some for both
but more for the cost… so lets cut cost for mult line accounts… that don’t use lots of data,
and if by chance they hit their limit, before the cycle is out then drop the speed… 2G or less
just don’t force them to buy more than they need… but don’t cut them off completely on the data…
yes, no, maybe

Maybe we should be like Progressive Insurance & have a name your own price tool!

Isn’t that exactly what the current Republic plans are? They work exactly like the Progressive tool. Want to pay less, get less coverage (or data in Republic’s case). Have more to spend, get higher coverage limits (or data amounts in Republic’s case).

I can understand you wanting a shared plan. I am not an engineer, but it seems the cost to administer that plan, may outweigh the savings. I don’t know what the cost is to manage Republic-1.0, 2.0, 3.0 (gone of course due to a price reduction in data). I’m not familiar with the Family Plans from other companies, my wife and myself are both on Republic. It has fit our needs well, I haven’t been able to find any other plan that is more cost effective. This is my opinion, and as I said I am not an engineer. I understand everyone has to make their own decision.

So, if the family plan you envision is $15 per line, and it allows a shared pool of data, but if someone in your family/pool burns through you want to allow data at a lower speed. Whom would you expect to pay for that excess data, Republic Wireless or the rest of us? (someone has to pay, the carriers are not 501C’s the last I heard)

I don’t want RW to change. Changing will probably equal higher fees & I like what little I am paying.

TheDoctor:

This was what I was thinking… spread the data out over phones…
…family plan, $15 per line but bucket of data….hit their limit…but don’t cut them off completely on the data.

jacobc.diw0of:

They’re trying to be different from the other companies which is very refreshing.

jben:

Whom would you expect to pay for that excess data, Republic Wireless

I’m all for reasonable changes to the My Choice plan that benefit member.s. Seems we finally have something simple that works for RW and most members. Hopefully it will stay around for a while and the days of major plan changes are over for a while.

Data sharing and/or Basic Data would be a very nice addition(s) to My Choice and be very attractive to most members with multiple lines. If RW is able to provide one or both without increasing plan costs few would likely complain. It could be lower cost family friendly option for some members.

$20 per line for data sharing and/or included Basic Data would be a more realistic price point and stay with the same simple price structure. Basic talk/text lines at $15 are still an attractive option for many members. Some members may not want to have any data regardless of speed available on their line or another member’s line. An extra $5 per line to join the data pool (adding a GB) and/or have Basic Data would be a reasonable price to pay.

It’s easy for us to say we would like this or that and it would benefit your company for these reasons. If all at RW were to get onboard and decide to make any plan changes the technical and data/accounting systems need changes and time to implement.

Obviously RW has been looking at ways to grow the business and remain competitive. Less expensive data with the intro of My Choice plans and the Basic Data test are good indications of their interest to be the best choice for low to moderate data users.

Republic wireless is already great, but yes, a family plan option would suit a lot of people. While it would probably be priced at as much as normal talk and text is, (15 a month,) it could add 1 GB of data for 5 bucks more a month. Say there is 3 people. It would be 45 a month on their plan without data (What would be the point of it?) and they want to share 2GB of data between them all. It would bump it up to 55 a month, instead of having on a single plan, 2 people get data, one doesn’t. If they all have data on a single plan, they would have to have it at 1GB each. That would be 60 a month. A family plan would make Republic cheaper, and basically have people change from, say one of the big four to Republic. But the only cons to a family plan are, first Republic would lose money. While Republic may get cheaper, a family plan would cause Republic to lose money. Only on certain conditions though. Say a family of, I don’t know, 6 wants to have data. They would only want to pay for about 1-3 GB of data. In that situation, Republic would lose money. But from that situation, before the family plans, they just didn’t pay for data at all. Then Republic would gain money, and stuff. A family plan could do lots of things to Republic.
One, make it better, and two make it worse, or three. Not do anything at all